Report: 200 environmental activists murdered in 2021

Over 1,700 environmental activists were killed between 2012 and 2021, according to an international non-profit report. In 2021, 200 activists died, almost four deaths per week, according to a Global Witness report. 

In Cambodia, Chut Wutty, an environmental investigator and activist, was murdered while trying to halt an illegal logging operation. In the western Mexico state of Jalisco, José Santos Isaac Chávez was killed after running for local office opposing a long-running mine.

In April 2021, Sandra Liliana Peña Chocué, an Indigenous governor in southwest Colombia, who had fought for the eradication of coca crops in Caldono, was killed near her home by armed men. Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing the added threat of oil and gas extraction.

One of the eight rangers of the park, Joannah Stutchbury was shot outside her home in Kenya. In June this year, journalist Dom Phillips, who wrote extensively for the Guardian and the Observer, and Bruno Pereira, a Brazilian expert on uncontacted tribes, were murdered in the Javari valley in Brazil’s Amazon after going missing.

The report titled ‘Decade of Defiance’ stated 1,733 environmental activists were killed in the last 10 years. In 2020, 227 such deaths were reported. This is the highest number of killings in a year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Out of the 200 deaths last year, 14 were Indians. This includes three people of the tribal community — Kawasi Waga, Uika Pandu, and Korsa. The three were allegedly shot dead by security forces during a protest against a security force camp in Silger village in Chhattisgarh.

In Assam, 32-year-old Moynal Haque and 12-year-old Sheikh Farid were shot dead by armed police during the eviction-related violence in Dhalpur village.

Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest from Jharkhand, was among 16 renowned activists, academics and lawyers who were charged under a draconian anti-terror law in what came to be known as the Bhima Koregaon case. He suffered from Parkinson’s disease while in custody and died there.

Vrinda Grover, a Supreme Court lawyer, said Swamy’s death was “designed to happen”. Other casualties include RTI activists Vipin Agarwal, T Sridhar and Venkatesh S.

Mexico recorded the highest number of killings, with 54 killings in 2021. Over 40 per cent of those killed were indigenous people. Whilst Brazil and India both saw a rise in lethal attacks from 20 to 26 and from four to 14, respectively, both Colombia and the Philippines saw a drop in killings. Yet overall, they remain two of the countries with the highest numbers of killings in the world since 2012.

Over three-quarters of the attacks recorded took place in Latin America. In Brazil, Peru and Venezuela, 78 per cent of attacks took place in the Amazon.

Global Witness documented 10 killings in Africa. Where a sector could be identified, just over a quarter of lethal attacks were reportedly linked to resource exploitation — logging, mining and large-scale agribusiness — and hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure.

These defenders are putting themselves in danger by confronting a viewpoint that sees nature as something not to be cherished and protected, but to be conquered and subdued, according to activist and author Vandana Shiva.

This is a viewpoint with its roots in the western industrial revolutions of the 19th century or even further back in the scientific theory of the western so-called ‘enlightenment’. It matters that this viewpoint originated in the West.

As this report shows, nearly all of the murdered environmental and land defenders are from the Global South, and yet it is not the Global South that reaps the supposed economic ‘rewards’ of all this violence. This viewpoint has brought us to the brink of collapse.

With this report, Global Witness aims to urge governments to enforce laws that protect activists while also laying out blueprints for accountability in companies throughout their global operations and have zero tolerance for attacks on land defenders.

“Activists and communities play a crucial role as the first line of defence against ecological collapse, as well as being frontrunners in the campaign to prevent it,” Global Witness CEO Mike Davis said in the report.

It is high time governments step up, identify their fault lines, execute their responsibilities and do a better job of defending their defenders for the ongoing decade. The future of our species, and our planet, depends on it.